Goodbyes and real friendship in Peru

I got one of the best despedidas/goodbyes ever in Peru; it lasted 3 days. First, on Saturday night, nearly everyone from Inppares held a party for me at Aurora's house. We drank a lot of wine, pisco, and sangria, laughed, and told stories for hours.

I got there at 8:30 and the party dissolved around 3am. I only cried once, when Manuel and Steffanie were the first to leave. Still have some great photos.

The photos from that night are hilarious, but the videos are even better. I have to upload them to Youtube and it's going to take awhile.

On Sunday, Rosario gave me a book of Peruvian slang, Mayra and Andre and Fernando called me to wish me a safe trip, and my host family cooked a tasty lunch for all of us.

I was really depressed on Sunday, thinking about my flight at 11pm. I accompanied Renzo on one last random taxi journey through the nearby districts. He ate some camote chips and stuck the bag into a bottle of Inca Kola, and we declared it the most Peruvian trash ever.

When we got back to the apartment, we drew/burned on the ceiling with a lighter and the smoke it produced.

Juan Pedro came all the way from Comas to give me a jersey from Inppares that says "Condones, Yes!" and his last name on the back. Then he accompanied Gian Franco and me to La Marina to purchase the Peru jacket I have been wanting for so long, and an indigenous-cloth-style purse. I found the jacket I wanted immediately, and for a great price! It took awhile longer to find the bag I wanted, and we literally went through every store. I have to admit that I also was dawdling because I didn't want them to leave.

But they didn't want to leave either! We went to a chifa restaurant beneath Raul's apartment (although we didn't see him) and I had a little bit of wantan soup. I was feeling sick with sadness about leaving so I couldn't really eat and I cried at the dinner table and used up almost all the napkins. The boys comforted me and we took some group pictures. :)

After dinner, they accompanied me back to my apartment, went to Inppares for a bit while I collected my bags, and came back to help me get my bags downstairs. Unfortunately my host parents did not seem to understand the urgency of getting to the airport early, because it was 8:30 and my host mom was watching comedies, Renzo was nowhere to be seen, and my host dad was far away with the car, heading towards the house. We ended up not leaving until after 9pm, whereas Gian Franco and Juan Pedro left for the airport in a bus 15 minutes earlier, so they could meet me there and send me off.

My host parents dropped me off on the street at the airport, my host sister didn't say goodbye to me or even get out of the car to hug me, and Renzo never made it. Because I couldn't see the boys and was running late, I decided to head in by myself. But Juan Pedro and Gian Franco came running and each grabbed one of my bags to help me. :) We went into the airport, I got in an incredibly long line, and …nothing happened in the line. I signed a paper saying I would be on the flight, but the plane was delayed by an hour so every single person in the huge line had to reschedule their connecting flights in other cities. For 20 minutes I stood in the same spot, then asked an official if I could bring my friends with me in the line to chat while I waited. They said, sure thing, line's not going anywhere fast, so I went out of line and chatted with Juan Pedro and Gian Franco. We took some more photos to remember the day by, and I was reasonably okay with leaving Peru, compared to the intense depression of earlier in the day.

They were thinking about leaving to get back to their houses, because it was late at night and they had work in the morning. Juan Pedro gave me his business card with his number because I had sold my phone, saying, "I have a feeling you're going to need this. If anything happens later, call me." They said they'd wait for a little while longer, until I checked my bag, then head out.

When I went back to take my place in line, because I was promised my place would be guarded, the line was gone and the official told me they had closed the flight 10 minutes ago. I had the most impressive breakdown of my life, genuinely humiliated, sweating a ton, and crying on the counter. Turns out there were no more flights until the following evening, so the lady took pity on me and booked me the next day's flights without charging me extra. (I didn't realize until I got on the plane today, but she gave me first class on all 3 flights!)

Hanging my head and wiping off my face, I trudged back to the boys, who were waiting for me outside the check-in area. I told them I missed my flight and described what happened. They were sympathetic and stunned for a little bit, then Juan Pedro started cracking up and congratulating me on one more day in Peru. We figured out that I'd stay at Gian Franco's house in Surco, bring my luggage with me to Inppares the next day (because they had work), and get to the airport really early.

Gian Franco and I took the long taxi ride to his house (40 min), met his sister, ate some delicious salad and fried fish, and headed to sleep.

The next day I went to Inppares with all my luggage. Andre couldn't believe I was there! I had a fun day just hanging around, helping when I could.

I took advantage of the extra day to say goodbye to the people in the store I always ate triples and snacks.

As we were leaving for the airport, I bought one last cake and strawberry milk shake from the tienda de los guapos next to Inppares. Rosario and Andre didn't come all the way to the airport, but they did walk with us to the taxi. Juan Pedro and Gian Franco sat with me in the back all the way to Callao to get to the airport. I checked in my bag with no problems whatsoever, and barely a line this time. It pays to get to the airport early!

We were so early that we went upstairs, looking for wine, didn't find any, and decided to leave the airport to find some. We found a "hole in the wall" place right next to the airport, ordered some wine, and Gian Franco got a big bottle of Cusquena beer.

We drank all the wine and the beer too! We pretended we were at Machu Picchu! The bottle of wine was my favorite kind: sweet Santiago Queriolo. It is also incredibly cheap, only 18 soles or $6. 

Sometimes we got serious, though. Juan Pedro declared a toast to friendship and I really felt the love. Gian Franco gave me a shirt of his to remember him by, and his old ID. 

We took some funny videos. This is me describing the FUA: 

Some tipsy pictures celebrating my last night in Peru, instead of mourning it.

My last picture of the boys, being drunk and silly in front of poster of a Peruvian boy.

We walked to the parting location and saw a bunch of people embracing and crying. Juan Pedro, joking as always, said, "Look at that guy crying like a dumbass," and I cracked up at his intentional insensitivity. The boys and I shared some very sentimental words and a ton of hugs. I didn't cry saying goodbye because I was tipsy and they were smiling and hugging me more and more. I walked through a pathway and they appeared on the other side to hug me again. :) When I got past the gate, I realized there was no way to go back and hug them one more time, and I almost started crying. Instead I just kept going forward, walked smoothly through the stamping of my passport, and headed for my plane gate.

I met some other Americans in the airport who loved Peru but I had a really hard time relating to them. They had been in Peru for 10 days or 3 weeks, a tiny amount of time, backpacking, not speaking Spanish, not liking Lima, not really knowing the culture, not missing Peruvian friends. I got depressed talking to them so I stopped haha.

When I got on the plane, someone had puked on the hallway leading to the plane, and tipsy me thought that was hilarious. In the background is the tall white guy who had backpacked through Cusco and thought it was a "shame" that I had spent so much time in Lima. Goddamn, how insulting to me and my friends, but he didn't realize it. I expect I'll encounter a fair amount more of people who don't understand why Lima is so great and why Peru is so similar to the US in all the ways that matter for making profound social connections and international brotherhood, and different from the US in so many beautiful and culturally significant ways.

I had no problems on my flights, enjoyed the first class, but had some cultural shock: remembering to speak in English, remembering to flush the toilet paper, having to pay $3 (9 soles) for water on the plane.

Thus ends my amazing 10 weeks in Peru. I plan to go back to Lima after graduation to live there for at least a year but likely more. I really miss my Peruvian friends but they chat with me all the time on Facebook. :) I don't know what I expected when I applied for a scholarship to go to Lima for the summer, but I got so much more than career development. I didn't blend in, but I definitely fit in. I got a ton of help from everyone every day, but in the end I was there by myself, my own choice, almost completely funded by my own effort, doing only exactly what I wanted to do, with no other Americans or even English-speakers. It was a huge personal success, made much more valuable by the lifelong friends I made there, to whom I could tell anything, who took me everywhere with them because they wanted to, who taught me everything with respect and patience, with whom I have shared adventures, secrets, advice, laughter until we cried, and tears until we laughed. I am so grateful.